Horsea conquered (again!)

[ShinyD]

So...having failed to attract anyone fool enough to want to do Vobster with me yesterday the last resort for getting wet this weekend (or maybe staying dryer, given the weather over the last week) was the Andark Sunday Dives.

I say last resort not because these sunday dives are bad, but given the wind on the south coast I knew the planned Chesil trip wouldn't be going ahead, so that left Horsea as the probable option. So it was to be, 4pm yesterday I phoned and was told that it was to be Horsea and it was with some misgivings that I put my name down.

I'd done my Open Water course at Horsea and the visibility was awful...less than a metre for both days, so I wasn't looking forward to it again...

I'd suffered somewhat of a confidence dent after the previous trip to Vobster and Horsea isn't the most exciting place in the world, but on the other hand it was perfect for what I wanted to do - get the buoyancy right and concentrate on ascents and descents.

I had another few doubts this morning when the alarm went off at 6:30 as I lay in bed listening to the rain and wind against the window. How easy it would be to ignore the alarm and roll over, but no - I was a man on a mission today, so I hauled myself out and headed for the shower.

I arrived at Andark at 7:55 just as the rain stopped to find another 2 had turned up, a father and son who would be buddying together. For 15 minutes or so it looked like I'd be buddying with one of the Andark staff, until eventually another guy turned up and then we were four.

For those that don't know, the Andark Sunday Dives are open to any diver from any agency and buddy pairs are formed with one experienced and one less experienced diver.

I left Andark at around 8:20 and arrived at Horsea 20 minutes later at Zone 1. Zone 2 was already heaving with people by then and Zone 3 was being used by a few schools for OW courses. We were fortunate being in Zone 1 as there was only the four of us plus another few guys from Andark doing a rescue diver course. In addition, Zone 1 has a 9m deep section instead of the 6m in the other 2 zones.

There were to be 2 dives of 30-40 minutes (my 8th and 9th dives) and my more experienced buddy, Matt, wanted to experiment a little with underwater navigation, so I was happy to follow his lead.

Harking back to my previous issues in Vobster I'd identified three areas that were the main cause. Weighting, ankle weights and the shoulder dump on the drysuit. The members here were great in offering advice, and with that in mind I wanted to mainly concentrate on the bouyancy ad was happy to follow Matt to wherever he wanted to go.

I'd decided the ankle weights were doing me more harm than good, as they seemed to keep forcing me to the vertical position in the water, rather than the semi-horizontal that I wanted. This meant that is I stopped finning I'd be dragged back to the vertical position quite quickly, and being only a metre or so off the bottom meant that the bottom was being stirred up. I was also excessively using air as I struggled to overcome the gravity effect of the ankle weights.

With all this in mind, I asked Matt if he was ok with me diving without the ankle weights, to which he replied yes. So with Matt primed with the possibility of me heading for the surface feet first we kitted up, did the buddy checks and entered the water in bright sunshine

We descended slowly while I got the shoulder dump to a setting I was happy with and set off at about a metre from the bottom in around 2m visibiity, but kinda green visibility.

After 28 minutes and a completely uneventful dive we surface again and climbed out having made a depth of 8.3 metres.

I was relieved that my buoyancy had been absolutely fine - maintaining depth and remaining off the bottom. The lack of ankle weights had the desired effect, and I was able to comfortably hold the right position in the water, performing a little 'wriggle' (ad described by a divemaster I know) now and then when I could feel a little too much air in the feet. As it happens I barely had to touch the suit inflator after reaching the bottom initially.

The technique of using breath control to rise and fall over objects on the bottom proved pretty effective, and I didn't actually touch anything that I didn't mean to touch (a rusty old toolbench complete with vice on one occasion).

After a break of around an hour we again kitted up and entered the water to go look for the armoured car. On this occasion the navigation went completely astray and we decided after 10 minutes to ascend and get our bearings, found we were within a few metres of the armoured car, swam over to the buoy and then descended again onto the car.

This was the only slightly worrying part of the 2 dives. I've no idea what these armoured cars look like in 'real life', so didn't really know what to expect as we descended. What I found was that had I carried on descending to the bottom I'd have ended up right inside it. As I approached it there was just a large black hole right under me that I definitely didn't want to get into. I stopped the descent and finned slightly over to one side where we continued to the bottom.

From there we'd decided on the surface to swim towards the bank and follow it back down to the exit point, so leaving the armoured car behind we set off to the bank.

There's quite a lot of life in Horsea, but most of it is small. We saw crabs, small fish near the bottom, some kind of shrimp things and a couple of larger, silver eels - maybe a foot or so long (they looked bigger, but I'd guess a foot or so).

The end of the second dive came soon enough - again without incident (other than us getting lost!), and we exited after 30 minutes and a depth of 6.2m.

All in all, it was actually a great day. I'd addressed the issues I had at Vobster and regained some confidence with bouyancy and ascent/descent control. We'd stayed together as a buddy pair and had achieved what we both wanted out of the dives. A huge bonus was being able to do without the ankle weights, as I was never really happy with them.

Hopefully I can get out somewhere next weekend - somewhere other than Horsea again!

[slip179]

Dave, glad it went well. I shed my ankle weights this weekend as well but added gaiters to reduce air migration to feet. Worked a treat and had nice trim in water!

Sorry the training schedule meant we couldn't guarantee to meet up yesterday. As it turned out, my buddy had call whcih meant we had to finish early. Met some other YDs there and the offer to buddy is still there. I am away for next 2 weeks but then back.

Richie

[hogen-deifar]

Fantastic, Dave. I'm so glad you managed to resolve your buoyancy issues. You sounded so down after your Vobster story and to hear this is great! Well done!